Wallace and Gromit: Difference between revisions

* [[Absent-Minded Professor]] - Wallace. Oh, so much.

* [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot]]: The antagonist of ''A Close Shave'', {{spoiler|Preston, was once a good robot dog that according to Wendolene suddenly became evil.}}

* [[Art Evolution]]: The models in ''A Grand Day Out'' were very different in design to the models we know now - just look at [https://web.archive.org/web/20130412200636/http://www.mojomovie.com/images/cache/screen_image_314215.jpg Wallace] in particular.

* [[Animation Bump]]: The first short, ''A Grand Day Out'', was mostly made by Nick Park himself, with Aardman Animations only coming in when the film was half complete. When compared to ''The Wrong Trousers'' (the first one with a lot of Aardman work), there is a world of difference in animation between the two.

* [[Aside Glance]]: Gromit. All the time.

* [[Background Halo]]: Lady Tottington gets one, along with a set of background ''wings'', when she advocates trapping the were-rabbit humanely. Lord Victor Quartermaine, who wants to just shoot it, gets a pair of background horns.

* [[Batman Can Breathe in Space]]: As evidenced by ''A Grand Day Out''. Granted, [[Toon Physics|they are stop-motion characters in an animated film]] on a moon made of cheese, so…

'''Gromit:''' ''(eyebrows rise mournfully)'' *nods*}}

* [[Bigger on the Inside]]: The house in ''Loaf and Death''. Somehow, a full bakery factory with machines, chutes and cogs manages to fit into the dimensions of a small two-story house - which still has room for a kitchen, dining room and bedrooms.

* [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]]: Piella Bakewell in ''Loaf and Death''.

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: ''A Close Shave,'' {{spoiler|in which Wallace saves Wendolene, but true love is thwarted as he discovers she is allergic to cheese. Even ''Wensleydale''.}}

* [[Blessed Are the Cheesemakers]]: Wallace's cheese obsession. The producers have great fun referencing the most bizarre and obscure cheese names possible.

** This namedropping, in fact, ''saved Wensleydale cheese'', which was right on the cusp of disappearing before Wallace and Gromit created a new demand for it.

* [[Brand X]] / [[Bland-Name Product]]: Everything from [[wikipedia:Smeg (appliances)|Smug Fridges]] and [[wikipedia:Swan Vesta|Duck Matches]] to [[wikipedia:Spudulike|Sud-U-Like Soap]] and [[wikipedia:Hello!|''Ay-Up!'' Magazine]].

** Played with inasmuch as Wallace and Gromit are working as window-cleaners when they meet Wendolene; "Windolene" is a cleaning product sold for cleaning glass.

** Poor Gromit falls into this all too often... (usually thanks to Wallace's stupidity).

*** Though to balance it out Wallace himself often gets it pretty bad too.

* [[Cartoon Bomb]]: In ''Loaf and Death''. Not only is it your classic cannonball-with-a-fuse, but it has "BOMB" written on it in large white letters. Cue Wallace: "Oh, Gromit! [[Captain Obvious|It's a bomb!]]"

* [[Cartoon Cheese]]: Averted in ''A Grand Day Out'', as moon cheese doesn't look anything like typical "orange-y swiss" cartoon cheese. More like cheddar. Wallace names several terrestrial cheeses in an unsuccessful attempt to determine what moon cheese tastes like, and finally concludes, "It's like no cheese I've ever tasted."

** There is a "have you seen this chicken?" poster with Feathers McGraw in the Were-Rabbit licensed game.

* [[Conveyor Belt O' Doom]]: The climax of ''A Close Shave.''

* [[Cute Mute]]: Fluffles

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: While Gromit is usually a [[Silent Snarker]], the duo's mutual diary - published as the Cheese Lover's Yearbook - has little typewritten notes expressing Gromit's reaction to whatever is happening. After the entries for "A Close Shave":

{{quote|'''Wallace''': Relieved to have come out of this in one piece.

* [[Defanged Horrors]]: ''Curse of the Were-Rabbit.''

* [[Did Not Get the Girl]]: Wallace on three occasions.

* [[The Dog Bites Back]]: Literally in the case of Fluffles.

* [[Dramatic Thunder]]: Piella's house. Also, the "a bullet" scene from ''Were-Rabbit''.

* [[Duck]]

* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: The first short was much more surreal than all of the others.

* [[Epiphany Therapy]]: Fluffles in ''Loaf and Death''.

* [[Fan Disservice]]: {{spoiler|We get to see Wallace's ''buttocks'' in "A Matter of Loaf and Death".}}

* [[Freeze-Frame Bonus]]: This is a stop-motion animated series, after all.

* [[Fun with Acronyms]]: The comic "Anoraknophobia" has SPARROW - an operation to '''S'''teal, '''P'''ilfer '''A'''nd '''R'''ecklessly '''R'''equisition '''O'''ther '''P'''eople's '''W'''ork. Wallace gets somewhat sidetracked by there being only one P in "Sparrow".

* [[Genius Ditz]] / [[Mad Scientist]]: Wallace's inventions range from malfunctioning Rube Goldberg-esque devices to clever and groundbreaking gadgets -- which also have a tendency to malfunction. Notably, he seems more competent in the feature film than in most of the shorts.

{{quote|Wallace: I'm in bread myself!

[[[Aside Glance]] from Gromit] }}

* [[Homemade Inventions]]: The series trademark, and the propellant for most of the plots. ''Cracking Contraptions'' is exclusively about these.

* [[Human Ladder]]: Well, sort of. It's a Sheep Ladder, in ''A Close Shave.''

* [[Hurricane of Puns]]: Ooh yeah. Besides the canine-themed titles of the books Gromit reads constantly, in ''Loaf and Death'' there's a a play on bakery words every so often. The climax of ''Were-Rabbit'' is also very groan-heavy.

** Not to mention all of the cheese-themed classic titles behind which Wallace's secret cheese dish is hidden.

* [[Hypercompetent Sidekick]]: Gromit.

* [[Identical Grandson]]: The Prickly Thicket Country Club has portraits of people involved in the founding of the club centuries before: Rory MacBiscuit, the Duchess Flitt, Witlace and Gimlet. They look remarkably similar to Duncan MacBiscuit, Felicity Flitt, Wallace, and Gromit, respectively.

* [[Intellectual Animal]] / [[Speech-Impaired Animal]]: Gromit and Fluffles, though they both make barely audible whining sounds at points.

* [[The Jeeves]]: Gromit acts as Wallace's valet, ready to do his master's bidding at the touch of a button: "Slippers, Breakfast, Newspaper, Walkies." Like every good Jeeves, though, his real job is to keep his [[Cloudcuckoolander]] boss out of harm's way.

{{quote|"Ow! Wallace, he bit me!" [[Don't Explain the Joke|Gromit has no mouth]].}}

*** Dog bite marks are also completely different from human bite marks, but Wallace is so enamored, he probably would have seen whatever Piella wanted at that point.

* [[Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard]]: Locking Gromit in the balloon storeroom.

* [[Man in a Kilt]]: Duncan McBiscuit.

* [[Meaningful Name]]: Wallace can be diminutised as "Wally", a slang term for a naïve or foolish person. A grommet is a rubber ring used to seal the edge of a hole, to stop it chafing the insulation of wires passed through the hole.

* [[Minimalist Cast]]: In all of the films except for ''Were-Rabbit'', only characters relevant to the plot make an appearance. This meant that ''A Grand Day Out'' and ''Wrong Trousers'' had a cast of only '''three''', of which only one (Wallace) has a speaking part.

* [[Mini-Mecha]]: With oven mitts.

* [[Newspaper-Thin Disguise]]: Several of them.

* [[No Mouth]]: Gromit

{{quote|'''Lord Victor Quartermaine''': How on earth would those tiny-minded buffoons ever catch such a big rabbit?

[[[Face Palm]] from Gromit. Hurrahs from everybody else] }}

* [[Oop North]]: Specifically, Oop in Lancashire (though Wallace's accent is actually Yorkshire). Kept vague until ''Loaf and Death'', when Gromit {{spoiler|tries to dispose of a bomb by throwing it}} [[wikipedia:War of the Roses|across the Yorkshire border]].

* [[The Other Darrin]]: Ben Whitehead has been increasingly acting as the voice of Wallace in recent years, most notably in the ''Grand Adventures'' series, along with a number of TV adverts featuring the duo. Fortunately Whitehead's voicing is so near to Peter Sallis that most people don't even notice the difference.

* [[Packed Hero]]: In ''A Close Shave'', the villain intends to do this to the heroes, complete with [[Conveyor Belt O' Doom]] into a machine which produced canned dog food. In the end it is the villain who gets crushed up and delivered into the cans. Not as gruesome as it sounds, since the villain is really {{spoiler|a robot}}.

* [[The Parody]]. A major feature of all the films except for the first. Although ''A Grand Day Out'' was funny and surreal, it was with the spoofing of old heist movies in ''The Wrong Trousers'' that the series found its true direction.

* [[Powered Armor]]: The Techno Trousers are at the very least half of one.

* [[Punny Name]]: Everybody bar the two mains, and trying to list them all would take most of the entry as even one-offs get names like this.

* [[The Red Stapler]]: The last of the creameries manufacturing the centuries-old Wensleydale cheese were teetering on the edge of closure in the early '90s, until they received a chance mention in ''A Grand Day Out''. Noticing the increased interest, the creamery persuaded Aardman Animation to endorse a ''[[Wallace and Gromit]]''-branded cheese, which worked to rebuild Wensleydale into a thriving product worldwide.

** Wallace's business ventures always take otherwise mundane concepts such as window washing or baking to a ludicrous extreme to accommodate the previously mentioned [[Rube Goldberg Device]] methods he feels are necessary to do the job.

* [[Shout-Out]]: Most of Aardman's work use this with amazing frequency. ''Wrong Trousers'' contains an extended spoof of heist movies, just as ''Were-Rabbit'' parodies a number of horror tropes. Individual shout outs are so numerous as to take up a ridiculous entry length, but viewers paying close attention are well rewarded.

* [[Something Else Also Rises]]: In "A Matter of Loaf and Death", when Wallace and Piella touch, we're treated to a shot of bread rising.

* [[Something That Begins With Boring]]: "Cheese Lover's Yearbook" has them going on a caravan holiday...where it naturally rains pretty much the whole time. Entries included "Played I Spy with Gromit all day"<ref>"R for rain featured regularly"</ref> and "There are 756 flowers on the wallpaper in the caravan".

* [[Spin-Off]]: [[Shaun the Sheep]] got his own TV series.

** And then Timmy from that series got his own [[Spin-Off]] in the form of [[Timmy Time]].

* [[Station Ident]]: To mark the showing of ''Loaf and Death'', [[BBC 1]] ran a number of specially-filmed 'Wallace and Gromit' idents during Christmas 2008.

** This was done way back in 1995, with several Christmas-themed idents for [[BBC 2]].

* [[Super Multi-Purpose Room]]: Basically every room in Wallace's house has built-in intricate mechanisms and contraptions to help Wallace and Gromit wake up, get dressed, effortlessly get seated for breakfast, get the breakfast prepared, get into their car, and and and ... See [[To the Batpole]]

* [[Technology Porn]]: Wallace's inventions- elaborate, ridiculous, and oh so fun to watch.

* [[Take That]]: Gromit is trying to dispose of a bomb at the end of ''Loaf and Death''. He goes to one window--there are cute little ducks in the pond underneath. He goes to another window--nuns collecting charity for kittens. He goes to a third--the Yorkshire border. He prepares to throw.

* [[Take the Wheel]]: In ''A Matter of Loaf and Death'', Wallace hands the wheel off to his dog while he makes a death-defying leap to save a bread heiress.

** And when Wallace says it, he means it [[Removable Steering Wheel|literally]]. Apparently that particular incarnation of the ever changing [[Thememobile|Wallacemobile]] has a socket for the steering wheel on either side. Hopefully the peddles are replicated on both sides as well.

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Wallace has been close to death far too often, mostly due to his absent-mindedness, and not paying attention to Gromit's warnings.

* [[To the Batpole]]: ''A Close Shave'', the feature film ''Curse of the Were-Rabbit'', and ''A Matter of Loaf and Death'' all feature our heroes suiting up via a Heath Robinson-esque process, depicted in all its absurd detail. ''A Close Shave'' had Wallace going through a similar scene; Gromit then simply walks through a door from the kitchen, rolling his eyes. An earlier example is established in ''The Wrong Trousers'': Wallace apparently begins every day with his bed tilting up and dropping him into a trapdoor from his upstairs bedroom to a chair at the dining room table, with mechanical arms providing a costume change. Both of these examples are intended as direct references to Gerry Anderson and ''[[Thunderbirds]]''.

** There is also a''[[Tracey Island]]'' gag involving a rotating fishpond.

* [[Trademark Favorite Food]]: Cheese, particularly Wensleydale, is Wallace's favorite, but he's also pretty enthusiastic about toast.

* [[Violent Glaswegian]]: Duncan McBiscuit from ''Grand Adventures''.

** {{spoiler|Hutch}} in ''Were-Rabbit'' is another exception.

* [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?]]: The name of the town is never given, though freeze-framing reveals Wallace's post is addressed to Wigan. A poster in ''Loaf And Death'' also shows a performance of ''Carmen'' taking place at the "Wigan Palais". And the van in ''Wererabbit'' has a Wigan A-Z.

* [[Who's on First?]]: The hare you'll find is much bigger.

[[Category:Memetic Works]]

[[Category:Western Animation of the 2000s]]